Monkey business in an outsider's life

Andrew Humphreys' second novel tackles a love that dares
not speak its name but will happily scratch its armpits, jump up and down and demand a banana - the love between man and chimpanzee.

The early sections of Wonderful establish Sydneysider Humphreys as a serious
comic talent, comfortably fulfilling his promise as one of the Sydney Morning Herald's anointed Best Young Australian Novelists for 2002.

The action alternates between the wilds of colonial
Africa and the even wilder environs of 1930s Hollywood. These are archly comical
scenes where the denizens of both worlds are skewered mercilessly by a keen
satirical eye. It's like reading Evelyn Waugh's Black Mischief intercut with his
great American satire The Loved One.

In Africa, Hungarian raconteur Jozsef Kiss seeks his fortune but has missed the boat of colonial opportunity. The once-mysterious continent has been carved up and the profits shared, long before he arrives.

Kiss attaches himself to safari expeditions, accompanying vulgar tourists who are keen to shoot anything that moves, have it transported back to Europe and mounted on their walls. During such a bloodbath, he discovers and adopts an orphaned baby chimpanzee.

Cut to Hollywood, where Kiss is doing the rounds of the major studios with his meal-ticket, the rapidly maturing genius known as Siggy the Wonder Chimp. The pair have made the journey across the ocean, like countless others, in search of the glittering dream of movie stardom. Kiss and Siggy are more than trainer and animal, they are drinking buddies, best friends and soul mates.

Fast cars, hot chicks and rivers of booze abound as Siggy hits the big time. If the supporting cast is a trifle unoriginal (sleazy agents, sweet starlets and plank-thick leading men), the action is nevertheless hilarious, carried off by Humphreys' fine comic bladework, honed by years of magazine writing.

There is a point, though. Wonderful deals with the idea of displacement and the outsider's constant struggle for acceptance. There's a recurring comic riff in the book where Kiss introduces himself and tells each new companion he is from Hungary. "Me too," they respond with uniform obliviousness, "I could eat a horse."

Of course Kiss is hungry: for money, fame, acceptance and belonging. Some of these, the more transient among them, are on offer in Hollywood and he samples them joyfully.

But ultimately the acceptance he craves will never come; he is destined to be an outsider. In talks for Siggy to star in a war-effort propaganda piece titled: Siggy Versus the Nazi Menace! Kiss explains to the producer that he is from Hungary, a war enemy. "It doesn't matter where you're from, just like it doesn't matter where Siggy's from," he is told. "You're here now and you're just as American as the rest of us, right?" The question mark is deafening.

Humphreys has a knack for comic dialogue and his novel's
expository passages are interspersed with slabs of mock screenplays -
hilariously kitsch excerpts from the Jungle Man pictures in which Siggy stars. Other devices tested in the book are less endearing. The relationship between Kiss and Siggy underpins the novel, but the scenes in which Kiss and the chimp converse in English are, at times, distracting.

We gain the unmistakable impression that Kiss and Siggy have no one but each other. Their place in Hollywood is built on the novelty that comes with being an outsider. As Siggy tells Kiss during one of their chats: "Everybody knows that chimpanzees are almost human. Almost, but not quite. An imperfect mirror of humanity, and that makes us funny." This not-quite-ness, long a key theme of post-colonial writing, is the basis of Humphreys' tragi-comedy.

As Siggy's life nears its end, we see Kiss confronted by that most human of fears, the terror of being alone. By the novel's close, he sits lonely in his cheap hotel, anonymous and utterly unimportant, "another broken immigrant".

Humphreys' book is a gentle reminder that as Western societies, we construe immigrants primarily in terms of how useful they are, rather than in terms of their basic humanity. Though he shares Waugh's observational eye and delightful tone, he lacks the vitriol that gave the master satirist real bite. Instead, there's a pervasive sadness lurking behind the jokes, an added depth that never takes the polish off the accomplished humour.